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BY 

JAMES Mo ASlLEf 



Abraham Lincoln 

Address Delivered in Memorial Hall, Toledo, Ohio 
February 12, 1918 

BY 

James M. Ashley 



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Abraham Lincoln 



"How humble yet how hopeful he could be; 

How in good fortune and ill the same, 
Not bitter in defeat nor boastful in success, 

Thirsty for power nor feverish for fame." 



Two names in America's wonderful history will forever serve as 
beacon lights to those who love liberty and their fellow men. George 
Washington, soldier, statesman, father of his country; Abraham Lincoln, 
master pilot of the ship of state, inspired leader of men, whose matchless 
statesmanship aroused and directed the heroic men who saved the Union, 
removed the blight of human slavery from our midst, recreated a nation 
of free men; a nation destined, under the providence of God, to become 
the greatest of commonwealths, in whose fate the welfare of man- 
kind is involved, a nation ever slow to anger but with high courage to 
maintain the right. Destined to win victory, not as brutal supermen, as 
we in horror behold today the attempt made in stricken Europe, through 
seas of blood and oceans of tears, but as fellow men, all children of a 
just God, by excellence in the gentle arts of peace, with malice towards 
none and charity towards all. 

Born in 1809, dying in 1865, the life and work of Abraham Lin- 
coln embraced a period in the life of the nation equal in importance 
to that in which Washington and Hamilton battled, thought and 
toiled for twenty-five years to the end that, from a small beginning, 
there should spring a mighty people, secure in their liberty and in the 
fruits of their toil, with a constitutional government strong but just and 
gentle in the administration of written laws made by and for the people; 
invincible in war against foreign foes; fit to serve not only as a beacon 
light to the oppressed of other lands, but ready, able and willing to aid 
in the extension of the blessings of that liberty to the men of other races 
and other climes. 

Less than sixty years ago the institution of human slavery hung like 
a pall over this fair land. The national life of our people was one of 
uncertainty, of dread, of apprehension, before the coming conflict of two 
irreconciliable civilizations. 

In the Southland were nine millions of Anglo-Saxons and four 
millions of negro slaves. There feudalism was revived, that relic of 
barbarism that held the humanity of Europe in its yoke for the four 
hundred years known to hisitorians as "the dark ages;" transplanted to 
the New World, where, nourished by a wealth of virg'n soil, fed by the 
unrequited toil of the slave, led by men of a world-conquering race, 
trained in the leadership of thought and action, with a settled, aggressive 
policy, it threatened the domination of the New World. Cotton was 
King, and the wealth of the growing commerce of the world was 
accumulated at a pace never known before. The slave baron, brainy, 
courageaus, daring, skillful in statecraft, faithful to his policy and 
leaders, had, aided by powerful politicians of the North, seized and 
dominated the national government, and was fast encroaching upon 
our national life. The shadow and the dread of a recurrence of the 
centuries of the dark ages rested heavily upon the heart and conscience 
of the Nation. 

— 3 — 



In the greater Northland another civilization had arisen, based on 
the greatest liberty to the individual consistent with the maintenance of 
oi'der, and had, as its basic truth, the principle that all men were created 
with equal rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness under the 
protection of constitutional law. It was based on free labor, on contracts 
enforcible byi law. It was nourished in the log school nouse; and the 
lives of its men and women were enriched by the living truths that came 
in lines of rude eloquence from the lips of the earnest men who carried the 
gospel truths from one rude hamlet to another. The brave and energetic 
the oppressed of all lands, came with glad hearts to help create a mighty 
commonwealth. This civilization soon produced inventors. Canals, 
the steam engine and the railroad, vast and powerful machines, soon 
harnessed the power of nature, and the slave labor of the South was soon 
equaled and then surpassed in productiveness, and twenty millions of free 
people were ready to defend their civilization, even in an appeal to the 
God of battles. Cotton, tilled by slave labor, was no longer king. Corn, 
wheat, the products of the factory — the results of the toil of free labor — 
became greater in value and brought to the many men of the North more 
of the necessities, the conveniences and the luxuries of life, and the educa- 
tion to enjoy them, than cotton brought to those of the South. Two 
mighty civilizations stood face to face. The great conflict was near at 
hand. One or the other must perish. 

Abraham Lincoln, of all the men of the North, was best fitted by 
nature and equipped by training to lead in this great conflict for the 
preservation of free institutions and the maintenance of that national 
union necessary to conserve the energies of a great people in their on- 
ward march towards a higher civilization. 

Born and reared amidst the hardships of a rude and turbulent frontier 
— his education in a log school house in the bare rudiments did not ex- 
ceed a year. But in his speeches and writings he displayed a style 
distinctive of his individuality; the structural order, clearness, sense of 
proportion, ease, simplicity — that gave classic quality to his utterances. 
Few men had so little of what is commonly regarded as oratory; and few 
have so constantly approached the high literary art everywhere apparent 
in his work. He early evidenced a passion for books and reading. Of 
these days his good old mother says, "Abe was a kind and dutiful son to 
me and I always took particular pains when he was reading, not to 
disturb him." He had access to a library of less than twenty volumes — but 
he managed to read through every volume within a circuit of sixty miles. 

This passion for knowledge so strongly displayed in Lincoln is not 
uncommon-^but the clear thinking he soon developed turned everything 
to account, and was uncommon. His self-education in the art of expres- 
sion soon gave him a reputation both as a talker and writer. In his 
speech especially he developed a command of primary and universal 
elements of interest in human affairs which became to him later a source 
of his greatest power. It was his deep and profound feeling on the public 
questions of the days before the war that carried him beyond the realm 
of mere oratory and gave to his words a finality of expression only seen 
in the noblest art. 

Lincoln and Douglass met in joint debate on the plains of Illinois in 
the fall of 1858. Lincoln 'Said, " 'A house divided against itself cannot 
stand.' I believe this government cannot permanently endure half-slave 
and half-free." Douglass declared in reply "that he did not care whether 
slavery was voted up or voted down." But Mr. Lincoln did care — the 
heart and conscience of the nation cared — every honest man in the 
world cai-ed. 

— 4 — 



The result of this memorable contest made Mr. Lincoln one of the 
leaders of his party, and finally in 1860 resulted in his nomination as the 
Republican candidate for President and in his triumphant election. At- 
tempted secession and armed rebellion followed. In the eleven cotton 
States the National authority was denied and the peaceful administration 
of National law ceased. The conflict of the two great civilizations of 
this continent commenced. President Lincoln called to his Cabinet all 
of his late rivals — Seward and Chase were the leaders — and announced 
as the policy of the Administration "that the Union must and shall be 
preserved;" that even war was preferable to disunion and anarchy — for 
there would have been not only one division but many. The Southern 
leaders refused all peace overtures, and fired on Fort Sumter. The call 
to arms was sounded throughout the North — all unwilling to believe 
that war was possible — and a million men sprang to arms, to defend the 
Flag, to protect the Union, and finally to crush out rebellion and slavery. 

By virtue of his office Abraham Lincoln became the Nation's leader — 
by virtue of his abilities its savior. As chief executive of the Nation, 
intrusted with the duties and responsibilities of a great government 
during the greatest civil war that has ever cursed mankind, he achieved 
greatness of the first rank. From the day of his inauguration to the 
tragic close of his life the mental and physical strain upon his vital force 
were beyond conception. There was in his mental make-up a marvel- 
ous blending of sunshine and sorrow — of earnestness and apparent levity, 
of humor, of hopeful prophecy, but of inexorable logic; and he did his 
work simply, grandly and well. 

He was without commercial training; yet in determining a financial 
policy to sustain the Government during this period of vast expenditure, 
although he. relied much upon his great Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon 
P. Chase, it was his decisive "aye" that approved the gigantic plans. And 
in the conduct of the foreign affairs — often on the verge of war with both 
Great Britain and France — he relied upon his accomplished Secretary of 
State, William H. Seward; even there he was the master director of 
things to be done and left undone. Peace abroad was necessary to suc- 
cess at home, and peace with honor was maintained. But in domestic 
policies he was alone in his greatness. By a singular tact, ability and 
patience, he held the loyalty and support of the border States of West 
Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri. When it is realized that these States 
put 250,000 of the best of soldiers, familiar with the people and the 
fighting grounds, into the Union armies, the importance of this triumph 
can be understood, since it rendered possible the early successes in the 
West that gave the men of the North the courage to continue to the end. 

Government by party had continued for many years. He was the 
chief of the Republican party — composed of many different and differing 
types of men — and party rule was to continue. He needed them all, 
the Nation's life depended upon radical and conservative uniting to 
do the necessary things through and under the forms of civil law. The 
leadership that brought together a majority of the North and held them 
for united political action during this four years of defeat and victory 
was a matchless leadership, broad, kindly, but determined, and de- 
termined that the rebellion should be subdued, that the Union should be 
restored, and that no dictatorship should mar this great triumph. 

He knew nothing of military affairs; yet the early disasters of the 
war forced him to acquire this knowledge, since he must finally decide all 
things, and at the close of that terrible oi'deal he was the equal of any 
of his great generals. As a statesman he so guided the acts of gov- 

— 5 — 



ernment, often tempted by the emergencies of disaster and defeat, that 
the Constitution not only withstood the storm safely, but was made 
stronger, better fitted, for the government of a great people than it was 
when he came to the Presidency. All of the essential and vital functions 
of government were conducted in accordance with the civil law of the 
land, through Constitutional methods, as authorized and directed by the 
representatives in Congress freely chosen by the people. 

With the end of the long and bloody war came the tragic end of this 
kindly old man, merciful always, just, as his duty required, and without 
the pride or arrogance of power. But before he left us to join the great 
dead he gave to us a message. It was at Gettysburg, on the first anni- 
versary of that great battle that he said simply and grandly: 

' Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this 
continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the propo- 
sition that all men are created equal. 

"Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether the Nation, 
or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. — We are 
met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a 
portion of that field as a final resting place for those who gave their lives 
that that Nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we 
should do this. 

"But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we 
cannot hallow, thia ground. The brave men, living and dead, whd 
struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract. 
The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can 
never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be 
dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have 
thus far nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the 
great task remaining before us; that from these honored dead we take 
increased devotion to that cause for which they gave their full measure 
of devotion; that we here highly resolve that those dead shall not have 
died in vain; that this Nation, under God, shall have a new birth of free- 
dom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people 
shall not perish from the earth." 

The Civil War has passed into history and the people of the North 
and the South have come year by year, and more and more clearly, to 
recognize their common destiny and their common duty to the greatest 
of commonwealths, under whose protection and leadership mankind may 
be lifted up to higher planes of thought and action by the shining example 
of Constitutional law made by and for the people of the great Republic. 

In this conflict, grand, terrible, but final, for the preservation of 
the Union, the upholding of the express and implied powers of the Con- 
stitution, the name and fame of Abraham Lincoln, great leader of the 
thoughts and actions of men, a controller of events, who during all the 
tremendous conflict used all his marvelous power to the limit of human 
possibility, will, so long as that Constitution endui'es, be recognized as its 
preserver, and as worthy of a place in the Nation's temple of fame beside 
that of Washington. 

And when the martyr's crown was pressed upon his brow and he 
passed into the valley and the shadow of death, there remained for us the 
immortal heritage of great duties fulfilled, a nation saved, the memory of 
a most orderly mind, of highest courage, of a gentle but firm hand, of 
ardent patriotism and a love for his fellow men that passeth human un- 

— 6 — 



derstanding, to guide us through the storms of this strange world where 
we dwell as in a twilight zone groping our uncertain way. 

The name and fame of Abraham Lincoln has become a milestone for 
all humanity, in its slow progress towards a better life under the reign 
of the higher law to come with the ages, a higher law justly adminis- 
tered for all humanity, of which Abraham Lincoln was the immortal 

prophet. 

J .M. ASHLEY. 



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